


White as Snow, Red with Blood

by eggsaladstain



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-10
Updated: 2014-02-12
Packaged: 2018-01-11 19:52:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1177234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eggsaladstain/pseuds/eggsaladstain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is not a fairy tale. There are no happy endings here.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Post 1x13

I.

This is not a fairy tale.

This is not the story you tell your daughter before she goes to bed, in hopes that it will give her sweet dreams when she closes her eyes.

No, this is the story you tell to keep her awake.

This is a warning, a lesson that the world is filled with evil, with monsters disguised as men who punish, destroy, kill.

This is not a story.

This is the truth.

And you will keep your daughter by your side, safe and protected, a rose hidden in a jar.

But no flower can bloom without the sun, and there will come a day when she will escape her glass home and venture out into the light.

And you might let her stay, for she looks so happy, but that would be a mistake.

You forget that where there is light, there is also dark.

No matter how bright the sun is, it will never pierce the dark of the night.

You will forget and she will pay with blood.

This is not a fairy tale.


	2. Chapter 2

II.

She is not a princess.

She is just a girl who got in way over her head and tumbled down, down, down the rabbit hole to a place both wondrous and strange.

But this is not a wonderland.

This is some other land where buses fly and men do too, where magic exists and comes in a little glass vial.

Don't drink it, though.

You never know what might happen.

You could shrink or grow or turn into someone else entirely, or perhaps, some _thing_  else.

If you're lucky, you'll just die.

No one is ever that lucky.

Certainly not her, perfectly preserved in her glass coffin, suspended in time and frozen.

But she is not a flower.

She is just a girl.

She does not belong in glass.

Let me go, she wants to scream, but her lips are covered in something sticky and no sound comes out.

So she lies there, still and silent, watching them watching her.

They don't see her struggling, they don't see her torment.

All they see is that she's still alive.

They don't realize there are worse things than death.

She swallows blood and tries not to gag.

She is not a princess.


	3. Chapter 3

III.

He is not a prince.

He is just a man – a hunter – who was sent to kill the wolf but fell victim to it instead.

It rips him apart, snarling wildly, black eyes gleaming as metal meets fur, as fangs meet flesh.

For every blow he lands, it strikes back twice as hard, biting down on skin and bone, blood dripping down its jowls.

But that's not the worst part.

No, the worst come after, when it sinks its teeth into his chest and buries itself into his heart.

And all the dark spaces, all the dark places that he tried for so long to tuck away are laid bare and open, drenched with the blood that stains his hands.

His eyes close as he sinks to his knees and suddenly he is young again.

He is a boy who went up the hill for water one day and tumbled down, down, down the well into the dark, dark, dark.

No, that's not right.

He is not the one who fell, that was someone else – he is the one who watched.

But that's not him anymore.

Coward. Disappointment. Failure.

That's not him.

If he says it enough, it might be true.

He is not a prince.


	4. Chapter 4

IV.

This is not a fairy tale.

This is a horror story, the kind that's whispered around a campfire in the dark.

She is not a princess.

She is a just girl with blood on her lips and ice in her bones, clinging to life but waiting to die.

He is not a prince.

He is a just man with a wolf in his heart, and scars no one can see, bruises that run too deep.

There are no happy endings here.

This is not a fairy tale.

_..._

_Fin_


End file.
